B. Vitvitsky: Letter to NY Times RE: Ukraine’s Newly Elected President Is Jewish. So Is Its Prime Minister. Not All Jews There Are Pleased.

B. Vitvitsky: Letter to NY Times RE: Ukraine’s Newly Elected President Is Jewish. So Is Its Prime Minister. Not All Jews There Are Pleased.

Dr. V|Summit, NJ
Mr. Higgins, if you're going to dip your toe into history then you might be well served to learn a bit more about it than some Cliff notes version you may have read. Ukrainian nationalist organizations did indeed cooperate with the Germans at the very outset of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union and in some sporadic instances after that. But soon after the German invasion the leader of the main nationalist organization, Stepan Bandera, and his associates were interned in Sachsenhausen because the Ukrainian nationalists had tried to proclaim an independent Ukrainian state, which the Germans did not appreciate. It is also noteworthy that Bandera's two brothers were incarcerated and died in Auschwitz. For most of the duration of the war, the Ukrainian nationalist underground fought both the Nazis and the Soviets. Of course, we ourselves were in league with the Soviets during WW II, towards whom our position changed rather dramatically soon thereafter.